Although this is a little different, I once posted that Miami has the majority of winners in FL. Coincidentally, when I just got on this morning, I started to list all the recent drawings where a Miami resident had won. In fact, on Jul 4 the Fantasy 5 game had 3 winners and all 3 tickets were purchased in Miami. The June 23 MegaMoney (which was the last time anyone won) was won in..you guessed it..Miami! It's almost a joke with myself - when I look up the press release I make a bet, because my odds of winning on guessing whether or not someone in Miami-Dade County will win are much better than picking the winning numbers.
Now, why is this? Well, Miami-Dade has a large and dense population. I believe there are over 2.3 mil people living there, and that doesn't include those with non-resident status. So if you take where I live (Lee County) and add it to Collier County, Charlotte County, Hendry County, Glades County, and even Sarasota County, the numbers still don't begin total the population of Miami and its suburbs. However, it does seem as if there is a disproportionate number of winners from one area to the entire State of Florida. So there might be another factor here, which is money. A lot of people who commute from other cities work in Miami, and many surveys show that people often buy tickets where they work. Miami also attracts a lot of tourism. Additionally, I've read that the Florida Lottery uses aggressive advertising to target Spanish speaking players, and the population of Miami-Dade is about 65% Hispanic.
I am relating this to the subject of this thread, because as of 2005, CA has over 36M people or 12% of the total population of the United States. Texas is #2 with over 22M people. If you add NY (#3) to 4 other Northeast states like NJ, MA & NH & ME you get about 36M, the same as CA. So it would make sense that more people in CA or TX might win just based on population. One other factor is the growth in illegal immigrants. Over the past 5 years CA has the highest growth (24%) according to many sources. I hate stereotyping, but I'm sure many of these people are buying tickets to increase their chances of living the American Dream. Keep in mind that currently both PB & MM are not offered in FL (#4 in pop) so when looking at total East Coast population you need to take those 17M people out of the equation.
I doubt if time zone has any effect on the lottery games. It might have an impact on elections because people find out that one candidate is far ahead of another after the polls close on the East Coast, which is why news channels are encouraged not to predict winners until after 8pm. However, the drawing for a PB or MM game is at one time for everyone who plays, so how can time zone even come into play?
As others have already said, it only takes one winning ticket and, if the games are random, then it's just luck, not where you live. It's like the posts that keep saying more QPs win, which is true, but only because of the percentage people buy. If a game is really random, then every set of numbers and every ticket purchased should always have an equal shot at winning the jackpot.